


i'm already home.

by dylaesthetics



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 6a, Allison mentioned many times, Beacon Hills High School, Comfort, Confessions, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Graduation, Lydia and Stiles, One Shot, Prom, Romance, Stydia, Teen Wolf, This is what we deserved, ghost riders, i changed the ghost riders plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24689887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dylaesthetics/pseuds/dylaesthetics
Summary: Lydia and Stiles attend their senior prom, when someone unexpectedly disturbs their perfectly normal-teenager life.
Relationships: Lydia Martin/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 6
Kudos: 58





	i'm already home.

**Author's Note:**

> here's the prom and graduation we deserved but never received.

Lydia doesn't quite understand why she's never discarded it. Locked it away in a cupboard she never opens. Maybe even burnt it until there's nothing but ashes.

Apart from a scarlet hunch, from when she had bled out in the middle of Beacon Hills high school's lacrosse field, the fabric of the silk dress remained just as raw. As fragile as her skin, met with a werewolf's bite.

Normally, after encountering a supernatural incident, Lydia throws her blood-soaked clothes out. She doesn't want to be reminded of screams that were followed by death and more holes in her friends’ bodies, even those that healed. The scars on her skin are enough to remember. But tonight she's thinking of only one.

The one thing Lydia remembers clearly about that night in mid-sophomore year in the dress she now rests in her palms is it was Jackson who saved her. Jackson, who she loved and who never returned the feeling. Jackson, who never appreciated her efforts, who overlooked her capabilities, who, ever so slowly, destroyed her up until she hardened her heart and promised herself to never love _falsely_ again.

Of course, if it weren't for Scott's efforts, Lydia would have never discovered the truth. Not how Stiles, who she had never dedicated a longer glance to before Allison dated Scott, had run after her when Jackson had appeared at the formal without Lydia's arm locked in his. Or how he'd give up anything to ensure she gets to the hospital in time, even if it meant betraying his friends' trust. Or how Stiles had spent a weekend by her hospital room, how he slept on the hard bench, hugging a silly balloon, and broken down when Lydia had disappeared from behind the shower curtain into thin air.

Lydia hadn't a clue that the dance was the first time Stiles, silly Stiles, who sometimes managed to wear his lacrosse jersey backwards, had saved her life.

At first, Kira demanded Lydia not to go. "To avoid resemblances", she'd said. But Lydia disagreed.

If there's one thing she'd learnt after facing death at every other corner, is that she doesn't walk away when the world turns against her. She no longer hides her bruises under coats of foundation and faces them in every reflection instead.

So why would going to prom after sophomore winter formal be any different?

Lydia brushes her fingers one last time against the old silk of her winter formal dress, shutting her eyes. Crystal clearly, she could feel Peter's teeth against her skin and a shout lingering in her throat, desired to escape.

When she opens her greens back again, it's all gone.

"Ready?"

Lydia carefully puts the old dress back on a hanger in her closet and adjusts the lace of her prom dress.

"Yeah. Just zip me up. Please?"

Soft fingers brushed against the bare of her back, the metal dancing across her skin like a cold shower. Lydia shuddered, feeling uneasy at someone's touch when she'd just imagined the bite only slightly lower than where Kira had begun fastening the zip of her dress.

As soon as Kira's hand left her body, Lydia closed the door of the closet in front of them, facing the reflection of her and Kira in their prom dresses, surrounded by clothes thrown across Lydia's bedroom and used cotton wipes from when they'd done their makeup.

"Are you sure?" Kira glanced at her in the mirror, while she quickly scanned her appearance.

Lydia was wearing a short, emerald red dress with Allison's old family necklace sitting steady on her low neckline. She went for simple and classy, not to stand out and avoid having everyone's eyes on her. She doesn't have anything to prove, not like she used to. Lydia knows that she'll have the attention of those she cares about. No one else in the room matters.

"Stiles will be with me. I'll be just fine," she says automatically because it's nothing but the truth.

Kira chuckles briefly. "You two sure have a habit of saving each other."

Lydia glances away from the mirror and, heels clicking against the laminate, approaches her bed stand. Her phone rings and it's a message from Stiles, whose old Jeep turns out to have broken down on the way to Lydia's house. A big shock, indeed.

"I sometimes wonder it's _because,_ when we're together, trouble finds us one way or another and we _need_ saving."

"You're still a good pair," Kira admits, flattening her black dress in the mirror.

Lydia flumps on her bed, running fingers over her bedsheets impatiently. "Do you think it's weird? That I'm going with Stiles?"

Her friend turns to face her dramatically as if she'd said something to offend her.

"I cannot imagine either of you going with anyone else. It just makes sense."

"But we're not.. We've never.. I've never.." Lydia struggled to find words.

"Maybe it's finally time you tell him. Tonight's your chance."

Even though Lydia struggled to verbally express her feelings towards Stiles, Kira - and probably the rest of the pack - knew how she felt. If it isn't words, it's her actions and how it's always Stiles she considers first, how her eyes glisten with him in the room.

"It's just not our style, being normal teenagers and going to prom, that is. I can't imagine telling him I-" Lydia avoids using the word _love._ "I care for him in non-life-threatening circumstances."

Lydia's phone rings again and a picture of Stiles pops up on the screen, saying he's going by foot.

"We don't know much about who’s been taking people yet. Maybe it's time you use the moments you get to be a normal teenager before the end of the world arrives again." Kira takes a last glance in the mirror before joining her friend on the bed.

And maybe Lydia should.

* * *

Stiles expected Lydia to show up at her door with a dramatic entrance. And she probably would've, had it been two years ago and neither of them ever imagined to become friends.

He, obviously, remembers picking her up to drive to the winter formal together. How she'd opened the door and her eyes darkened, not seeing Jackson on the other side of it. How Stiles couldn't summon enough courage to tell her she looked beautiful right away. How she'd said nothing about the state of his Jeep, yet cleaned her dress from dirt once out of it at the school parking lot.

This time, Lydia opened the door as a friend, not because she was forced to so that Allison had her revenge. And when she appeared on the other side, her eyes lit up instead.

"It's nothing big, I know, but you mentioned you'd be wearing red so I stumbled across this dress at the store and thought we could match."

She was nervous. Of course. Stiles knew Lydia had plenty more strength than necessary to get through another dance, yet the resemblances from the night two years ago still followed her around.

"You're gorgeous." Stiles avoided words he'd spoken before to help her fight back memories.

Even though Lydia tried to hide it with a small chuckle, Stiles still noticed the rose creeping up in her cheeks.

"You don't look too bad yourself." she stared down at Stiles' red dress shirt, then the rest of him and he suddenly had the urge to fix his hair.

"I thought... My jeep... Maybe we should go for a walk instead. School's just a few blocks away." Stiles offered, taking her hand and walking her down the steps to the driveway.

They had held hands too many times to count since the winter formal, though, every time when they were scared or in danger - to feel stronger. This time, with no enemies in sight, felt different yet just as safe.

"Are you excited? I'm a good dancer." Stiles said as they reached the dark street, illuminated only by few dim streetlights.

"Debatable... Back at the formal, you tried so hard to not step on my feet, you invented a new dance move."

Lydia was surprised for having mentioned the night first. Stiles felt her hand shake so he squeezed it lightly.

"I'm sorry. All I could think about was that I had just confessed my feelings to my first crush and she'd agreed to dance with me. I didn't prepare for a yes." Stiles failed to notice the softness in Lydia's eyes when he'd said the word _crush_. _Crush_ sounded so young, so inexperienced.

"Thank you for that." she squeezed his hand tighter, brushing her thumb across Stiles' hand.

"What?" he was confused.

Lydia didn't speak for a good moment, thinking. After all, Stiles had done more than one thing to be thankful for that night. And as much as she appreciated his sacrifice, she wasn't ready to tell Stiles she knows the truth just yet.

"For saying I'm smart." her smile lit up her cheeks. "That really.. changed something."

"It's nothing you didn't already know."

"Yes, but I needed to hear it from someone else. I was never told I'm smart enough but there you were, as close as a stranger, yet you didn't underestimate me." Lydia’s voice softened as she met eyes with the boy walking by her side. "So, thank you."

Stiles was wonderstruck; Lydia had never been one to express her feelings. "The world needed Lydia Martin's brain."

For the rest of the walk to the school, they exchanged brief guesses about how the school had freshened up the gym for senior prom. Lydia felt careless, Stiles' hand never letting go of hers. She didn't remember the last time she hadn't worried about yet another supernatural chaos, who could steal her friends away from her. Steal Stiles away from her. But right now, all Lydia minded was how much of a _normal teenager_ she felt, excited about their final year of high school.

"Are you ready?" Stiles finally let go of her hand by the entrance door to the school, only to offer his elbow as they had in the same place before. Lydia didn’t hesitate to lock their arms this time.

"There's nothing to look back at."

Kira had left after Lydia, yet Scott and she were already on the dance floor when Stiles and Lydia entered the transformed gym.

If not for the theme change and some of their classmates growing beards in the past two years, the dance looked the same. They used the same moving lights that danced on the ceiling and blinded everyone's sight. If Stiles hadn’t reached for her arm so early in the night, Lydia would've thought it's their sophomore year.

"Drinks?" Stiles knew better than to let go of her and leave her standing by the door alone, so he slowly moved both of them through the crowd to the lady handing out red punch to the thirsty dancers.

With cups full, they approached Kira and Scott. Too invested in an awkward dance that caught schoolmates’ attention, the couple failed to notice their arrival.

"You two are fitting right in." Stiles joked, still holding onto Lydia.

Scott finally gazed at Stiles, though weirdly – like he didn’t even recognize his best friend-, then immediately shifted his attention to Lydia, as if judging her.

"Thirsty?" she offered them her drink, which they took immediately, leaving her no more than a sip.

"We'll go then. Have a good night." when Kira and Scott seemed to not be in a mood for a shouted conversation drowned out by the loud 00s music, Stiles finished his cup in a flash and waved a quick goodbye.

The couple in red walked silently to an emptier spot farther from the stage, where a band was preparing to start their performance. Lydia's heart raced.

"Are you OK?" Stiles noticed a shift in her eyes when they'd stopped.

Of course he had. Lydia had no doubt that sometimes Stiles seems to know her better than she knows herself.

And she wasn’t fine. Perhaps Kira had been right – there’d be too many resemblances. However, the last dance Scott attended with no one other than Allison.

She reached for her necklace, tugging at it lightly before looking back up at Stiles, whose face had filled with worry.

"Let's just dance." she forced a dimpled smile with damp eyes and put her hands on Stiles' back and waist. He followed her example with quite a distance between them.

It felt different, not sitting around, watching Jackson, until Stiles had enough courage to ask her for a dance. This time, Lydia had come with him willingly. And as Kira had mentioned, it wouldn't make sense for her to be at the dance with anyone other than him.

Lydia wondered if those years ago she'd ever considered spending time with Stiles. She was pretending to be someone else, that's true, but sometimes she lost herself within those attempts and actually became the popular girl with the popular boyfriend, who ignored anyone not on the same level as her. But Stiles?

As the band started performing their first song, Stiles had subconsciously moved at least ten inches closer to Lydia's chest. So close, his unsteady breath was on her neck. Naturally, Lydia placed her head on Stiles' shoulder sideways - so she could see his face at the corner of her eyes - even though the song wasn't particularly slow. Stiles moved the hand on her back to her hair and patted it slightly, before sliding his fingers through it.

Lydia shuddered, goosebumps forming on the back on her neck.

"There's something I.." she began, but Stiles brushed a finger against her lips.

"Shush. Let's not talk. It’s kind of nice to not be running away from the bad guys for a bit."

So Lydia listened, even if she didn't quite understand why Stiles would want to be quiet; she’d rather finally tell him everything – the truth. But they didn't speak, not for several songs until the band played a slow song she recognized from the winter formal night. The song that was playing when she'd run off to find Jackson, leaving Stiles alone on the dance floor.

It was then that Lydia realized that the dance wasn't traumatic for just her, the victim of Peter's attack.

Stiles suffered, too.

"I'm so sorry." suddenly, Lydia moved her head back up and stared into Stiles' eyes, filling with panic.

"What?" his shout startled the dancers around them, who moved farther from the couple. "Lydia, what's wrong?" Stiles cupped her cheeks firmly like he had many times when she’d been in danger. Lydia melted into the touch like a soft pillow after a tiresome day, shutting her eyes.

"That night. It meant something to you, but all I could think about was Jackson. And then I just ran away from you and next time you saw me I was bleeding out on a field."

Stiles was surprised. As she suspected, he hadn't a clue Scott had enlightened Lydia about the true happenings at winter formal.

"And I didn't even know you. I didn't know just how much you would end up meaning to me, that we'd become best friends..” Lydia formed a small smile, realizing she’d never called Stiles her best friend before. “That you were probably the only person, who’d ever care if something were to happen to me and you understood me, said the right words, without ever even speaking to me. You never deserved how I treated you, ignored you. I never had the slightest clue I could meet someone I feel so complete with. But I know that’s you now. Tonight there is no one else I'd rather be here with than you. And every other night."

Lydia had said too much. She didn't dare to keep her eyes open because however Stiles was looking at her, she couldn't deal with it. Just like she suffered when he was with Malia, same as Stiles had with Lydia many years before, how she became a secondary character in his life and his sheets smelled like Malia and cupboards possessed her belongings-, just like that she suffered at this very moment.

Because everything had changed. They were no longer 16, leading separate lives – Lydia, always the centre of attention, while geeky Stiles and Scott she never imagined remembering after graduation. They weren’t fighting the bad guys, exposed to the world of supernatural, saving the lives of strangers and mourning friends and allies. They were protectors, whether the pack used claws, screams, lightning, bullets or minds.

Lydia knew that Stiles loved her. But after all this time, she couldn’t recognize whether as only a friend. What Stiles had got accustomed to since third grade, Lydia discovered on a dusty locker room floor.

She felt his fingers skim over her face with care - like a feather -, but also eagerly as he’d never be able to touch her again. Lydia sank into his palms and a single tear of relief danced down her cheek.

"Look at me. Please." Stiles ordered as _she_ had back in the boys’ locker room last year.

So Lydia did.

His face had completely changed from worried to... A look he'd given her only a few times, but ones so important she had memorized it and wished to see again and again.

One, him untangling a red string caught around her fingers as he sits in front of her lying across his bed with her shoes knocked off.

Two, in the empty locker room with sunlight creeping in, his fingers still shaky as she leaned away from his lips, her own hands slowly stopped cupping his cheeks and his eyes golden, shining brightly enough to light up the entire room.

Three, her waking up on the table in the animal clinic, eyes shut as he brushed pieces of glass from her face and helped her sit up.

And here he was, staring at her just as mesmerized, as touched and absolutely... Could it be?

They both began to lean in, much slower than in the locker room when Lydia had taken extreme measures to help Stiles' panic attack. Like they had all the time in the world. Like they weren’t in a room full of strangers and friends. So focused on each other's face, they _almost_ didn't notice the unexplainable breeze on their nude ankles.

Suddenly, Lydia felt Stiles stopping and jerking back - away from her, yet still holding her shoulders-, gazing at something behind her, out the open door of the gym. Dumbfounded, Lydia followed his gaze but only saw trees.

* * *

“Stiles, what’s going on?”

He was dragging Lydia across the dance floor, not saying a word.

Stiles finally stopped at the door that led inside the school, to the hall with lockers. He glanced around the gym, searching for Scott and Kira but they were nowhere in sight. Stiles then pushed the door open and they both ran inside the almost vacant hallway. Two freshmen, probably sneaked into prom, were making out against the lockers and, interrupted by Stiles’ “Leave or we’ll inform the teachers”, the couple slipped back into the dance. As soon as the door shut, Lydia faced the boy.

“They’re called the ghost riders.” Stiles finally spoke. “Scott and I, just before prom, we talked to Alex, the boy whose parents disappeared. He explained how they looked and I think- no, I _know_ I just saw one. And they’re not the murder type of bad guys. I mean, they don’t just take bodies, they literally erase people from everyone’s memories and all that’s ever belonged to them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before?” Lydia squeaked out, her mind overflowing with new information about yet another threat to her friends.

Stiles held her by shoulders, noticing her body shake. “We didn’t want to bother you since you already had enough of a burden on your mind. And we’re afraid, we-” he studied the hallway, feeling a distant breeze on his skin. “That if you can see them, they’re going to take you, too.”

Lydia shuddered; the breeze had reached her bare legs, too, but with one look around she realized there were no windows or open doors.

“Take you? That means-” she finally understood.

“I’m next.” Stiles interrupted before she could finish. “Which is why you need to get someplace safe.”

“I’m not leaving you,” Lydia argued immediately.

Stiles paid her a quick glance, appreciative yet full of concern, before running his hand down her shoulder.

“We need to get Scott and Kira.” she grabbed his hand in an attempt to lead them back inside the dance.

“There’s no time.” Stiles protested, staring behind Lydia’s back. “They’re here.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

* * *

They cracked the first unlocked door they could find open, rushing inside and slamming their backs against the painted wood to hold it shut. Breaths unsteady and eyes shifting out of focus from the adrenaline, the pair failed to notice they’d stepped inside the moonlit boy’s locker room.

Lydia glanced over at Stiles, who was visibly arguing with himself in his head as his eyelids flickered hastily.

“Shouldn’t we run?” she pointed at the door outside the room, which led to the lacrosse field. He shook his head, fixing on Lydia’s face as if he’d made a decision.

When Stiles stepped away from the door, taking his time, the girl in red understood which.

“Lydia, I’m going to be erased. You’re going to forget me.”

“I won’t. I won’t, I won’t.” she was desperately shaking her head now, too, approaching Stiles, who was now pacing in front of her, and stopping him by gripping his hand. He looked down at their intertwined fingers and something in his eyes shifted. Regret? Disappointment? Lydia couldn’t tell.

“Okay... But you will.” he sighed out the words, grazing a finger over her palm. “Just try to find some way to remember me.”

Lydia nodded, even if her brain couldn’t catch up just yet. She studied Stiles’ face, associating each mannerism with a memory. And he helped.

“Remember how you were the first girl I ever danced with?” Stiles used his free hand to caress Lydia’s shoulder, skimming over the lace of her dress.

Lydia made sure to keep her gaze on the boy in front of her, and imagined the winter formal, skipping over Peter’s attack, how Stiles had asked her to dance and how long it took her to finally agree.

“How I had a crush on you freshman year.” Lydia remembered his cheeky comments at the teachers from behind her in class, the way Stiles corrected them when they’d attempted to call him by his real name, how she’d felt his stare on the back of her head while she eagerly wrote down her biology notes.

“Sophomore year..” lunch breaks with him, Scott and Allison, formal dress shopping, ice skating with fingers intertwined for the first time, how she’d visited him after the first lacrosse match he’d ever won.

“Junior year..” he hesitated.

Last year. Finally, Lydia blinked away the tears watering her eyes as she looked behind Stiles’ back at the very same dust-covered ground where she’d kissed him and remembered just how rapidly it’d changed it all. She visualized Stiles with his irises homed in on her greens and licked her lips to get a taste of his like it had happened yesterday. She remembered the red string, bus chase, motel California, pulling him under the water of the ice bath, fighting the nogitsune out of his mind, the laughs they’d shared, the first time she visited him when it had nothing to do with supernatural chaos.

“Remember how you saved my life?” when Stiles whispered it, Lydia wasn’t entirely sure which time he meant.

“You saved my life, too.” Winter formal. The crows. The coyote trap. Eichen house, more than once. So many times, Lydia struggled to understand which time she spoke of, too.

“Just remember..” he struggled to speak with a knot in his throat, as he squashed her hand tighter than ever before. “Remember I love you."

Lydia wasn't quick enough. Maybe if she weren't scared of the word, the feeling, no, state of heart, the word described. If she hadn't seen it work out with either her parents or anyone she's ever been with, how can she say _love_ exists. And how does one know when it comes, when it really comes, if not for how desperately she desired to ever hear these words from Stiles. No one else, but him.

But she didn't have enough time to overcome this fear that's followed her throughout her life, so she said nothing, just squeezed Stiles' hand as an agreement and argued with herself in her mind twice before the door of the locked room flew open and he was stolen out of her hands - disappeared into a green fog.

Just like that, Stiles was taken. And Lydia, she used up all her concentration into remembering him. How she was the first girl he'd ever danced with. How she was the last girl he'd danced with. How he looked at her in his room with a red string on his murder board. Or when she'd kissed him in this very same room. Or finally thanked Stiles for saving her life. Or how he was just staring at her a minute ago. How he loved her. How she loved him.

And for a moment there, she remembered it all.

* * *

“And now, I invite Lydia Martin onstage for this year’s senior graduation speech. She isn’t only the brightest student Beacon Hills high school has taught, but Lydia is also starting MIT later this year.”

It had been months since the ghost riders had erased Stiles since Lydia searched for something missing until she found proof that he existed, even if no one around her believed her. Weeks since Lydia had brought him back with memories of them together since she finally told Stiles she loved him back and, just like that, _fell_ together as a whole.

And here they were, the first row at their graduation, Stiles squeezing Lydia’s hand before she exhaled shakily and stood up. As she walked towards the microphone stand in front of the crowd of friends and family, she felt his gaze on the back of her head, like in freshman year.

Lydia exhaled again before putting a card with her carefully written and overthought speech on the stand and clearing her throat.

“Do you remember your freshman year, here at Beacon Hills? How you fixed your embarrassing haircut before coming inside this same building for the first time, where you either had your friends waiting or you anxiously wished you made new ones the same day? Or how your eyes popped out of your head because your middle school crush’d had a makeover over summer and looked even better, but, of course, still out of your league?” Stiles had asked Lydia to include this line last night when she’d read the speech to him before they fell asleep together in Stiles’ bed. She’d kissed him, saying he’d never been out of her league. Lydia smiled, locking eyes with the boy.

“Sophomore year would be better, we’d said, while our families listened to us recite math formulas for the pop quiz that everyone somehow still found out about before sleep. Or we fought over who’s the better lacrosse team co-captain. Or sneaked into winter formal despite failed classes.” the students laughed, probably recalling coach’s face when Scott had used Danny to stay at the dance, even though his grades had not allowed so.

“If the sophomore year hadn’t made any of us swiftly start leaning into adolescence, I’m sure junior year was the one for many.” Lydia breathed out, grief creeping into her body as she’d predicted. “We experienced the loss of the ones closest to us and those we only ever saw in the hallways between classes or the seats of a match. We lost too many and we, especially, lost ourselves somewhere in the midst of tragedy after tragedy. And we’ll never forget every one of them.” she allowed a single tear to drop on her cheek, as she held onto Allison’s necklace.

Lydia glanced over at Scott, next to Stiles, Kira and Malia in the first row, and smiled at him woefully. Immediately, he returned the gesture. They both wished she could still be with them today, hearing their graduation speech beside her friends, her pack. Together.

“Senior year, in all honestly, is a blur for many of us. So surreal, so difficult to accept the approaching end of our teenage years, college acceptance letters and sorrowful goodbyes to our loved ones.” the students and those close to them silently glanced around the crowd, waving at friends and kissing their partners.

“As for my friends..” Lydia couldn’t contain her tears now and she cried quietly, watching Scott, Kira, Malia and Stiles, _her_ Stiles. “It’s safe to say, we’ll stay together for the rest of our lives. I am so thankful to each one of you, for the memories keeping us intact and uniting us. I consider you my family.” she couldn’t say ‘pack’, but ‘family’ had a similar ring.

“Wherever your life will lead you next, never lose touch with the ones who enrichened your past and made parts of your life special. Keep hold of who you are or wish to become. And most importantly, keep in mind that even in the darkest of times, there is still a ray of sunlight at the far horizon. Thank you.”

Lydia hadn’t realized just how captivated the crowd was by her speech until the applause threatened to break her eardrums and she waltzed down the stairs, back to her friends.

“I love you, Lydia. So much.” Stiles whispered into her ear, when she settled down next to him, immediately linking their hands. He kissed her hair and inhaled the scent of her shampoo. After months of separation, both of them picked it up; it was always hard to let go of each other and they used every moment they could to engrave everything there is to know about one another in their minds. Touch, sight, sound, scent.

“And I love you.” Lydia cupped his cheek with her other hand and leaned in to kiss him. Slowly, like most of their kisses since Stiles’ return, because, as much as their time together could run out at any moment, they were there for the moment. Long enough to create a memory.

This time it was bittersweet. With love, _so_ much love, yet a hint of goodbye from the most important part of their lives this far.

The rest of the graduation slipped by quickly and they didn’t even notice until their class set their graduation hats off in the air and the crowd split into smaller groups.

“It’s really over now, huh?” Scott asked, an arm around Kira. “Feels like nothing’s changed.” he paid a glance to every one of his friends.

“Everything’s changed.” Stiles disagreed, locking eyes with Lydia before snuggling up to her side under the tree, where the pack stood by each other’s side. Their families had yet to approach them.

Even with their eye contact broken, Lydia repeated his words in her head. Never, not once, in freshman year, would she have thought to find her true, authentic self, these friends – her family, who she cannot imagine her life without now, fighting supernatural creatures and saving lives... Finding love. Love that is honest and kind, and unconditional. Love that is impossible to tear apart and one that cannot vanish even over time. Love that doesn’t destroy or bring chaos.

After all this time, Lydia has discovered that love can work, thrive and remain. And it is, indeed, true.

“You want to go home?” Stiles requested, once Scott and the others had left with their parents, and it was only the two of them hiding in the shadow of the tree.

Lydia reached up to his cheek to rest her palm against it. “I’m already there.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first teen wolf work! earlier this year i rejoined the fandom and i love these two too much to not write about them.
> 
> @piinofs on twitter


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